Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 22, 1883

Religious Notes.

—The pope recently appointed several new bishops, including bishops at Charleston, S. C., and Grand Rapids, Mich.

—A class of 250 young persons was confirmed at the church of the Immaculate Conception (Catholic), in Oakland, last week.

—There is not a mortgage debt upon any Presbyterian church in Nebraska, a thing which, so says the Occident, can be said of no other State in the Union.

—When the pastor of the Methodist church at Amherst, Mass., was sick a few Sundays ago, his wife took his place in the pulpit, and delivered an acceptable sermon.

—It is stated that some members of the Methodist Conference in India, and delegates to the Decennial Conference at Calcutta, traveled as much as 2,098 miles to attend their appointments.

—In his last lecture Joseph Cook said: “The two worst evils of our time inside the domain of Christendom are probably luxurious living among church-members, and loose thinking among religious teachers.”

—Bishop Keeney, in his address to the Conference of the M. E. Church South, recently in session at Charleston, W. Va., said: “It will be a lamentable day for the church when the selection of preachers is confined to educated men.”

—Louis Bourdaloue, the eminent French preacher, once said: “There are not twenty hearers in a thousand who know exactly what they come for when they enter a church; the sermon is never really listened to, nor really understood, save by those who could best do without it.”

—Recent statistics show that Connecticut is the only State in the Union in which every original town had a Congregational church, and in not one of these towns has the Congregational church ceased to live. Congregational church members form nine per cent. of the State's population.

—The Baptist summary for the United States for the past year gives the following totals: members, 2,394,742; increase, 48,720; associations, 1,164; churches, 26,931; increase, 558; ordained ministers, 17,090; increase, 576. There were 94,680 baptisms, against 81,570 in 1881. Nearly 28,000 were excluded, 20,580 died, 6,354 names were erased, and 11,971 restored.

—Following is a part of the report of the New York City Mission and Tract Society for the past year: Missionary visits, 47,639; Bibles and Testaments given, 171; volumes loaned and given, 10,039; children led to Sunday-schools, 2,646; children led to day schools, 306; persons induced to join Bible classes, 992; persuaded to attend churches and missions, 13,939; temperance pledges, 988.

—An English paper states that “General” Booth has modified the methods of the Salvation Army, so as to do away in London with street processions, and limit the marchings, counter-marchings, trumpet blowings, and drum beatings to the boundaries of the “barracks.” He has been moved to do this by the rude, cruel, and riotous persecutions which the Army has suffered at the hands of “roughs.”

—The latest statistics of Methodism—in which term all its branches are included—give the total world membership at 4,986,756. Of this number 3,840,302 are in this country, 878,985 in Great Britain and Missions, and 170,931 in Canada. The whole number of itinerant ministers is 33,208, with 26,298 of them in the United States. Besides this, there are in this country 88,993 “local” preachers, or laymen authorized to preach.

—Cambridge University, the foremost exponent of mathematical and Schemitic learning in Great Britain, evidently does not believe in the alleged educating power of the drama. The vice-chancellor and the heads of the colleges have just exercised the right which the law gives them, of shutting up the theatres in the town during term-time; that is, for six months of the year. The theater people are trying to stir up the inhabitants of Cambridge to resist this action of the University.—S. S. Times.

—John Wesley once said: “Beware how you invite rich men into your churches until you are sure they are Christians. Beware how you manage your churches in such a way that rich men will become a necessity to you. If your church buildings are so luxurious that you need an enormous income, wealthy men will be necessary to you, and they will rule you, and then you must soon bid farewell to Methodist discipline, and, perhaps, to Methodist doctrine.” That was a wise utterance, but it is not the only one of John Wesley’s utterances which modern Methodists have forgotten. If his sturdy simplicity were more common now, the churches might not be so destitute of regard for God's law, which he so zealously upheld.